The Amy Winehouse hologram tour has been postponed after running into difficulties. Good. While Winehouse’s family consented to the show (to benefit her charitable foundation), Amy hasn’t for obvious reasons. A mere seven years after her tragic death, isn’t it grim and tasteless to send her hologram off on some naff tour?

Touring holograms are going to be big business. Already the late Roy Orbison has “toured”, while Abba are considering hologram technology for a virtual experience. Promoters must be rubbing their hands at the possibility of doing tours without having to deal with unprofessional performers who are still alive. It’s even argued that the technology could help performers such as Winehouse, who suffered from gruelling tour schedules – by allowing them to do just one gig and have their hologram appear at other venues. Is this some kind of joke?

Audiences put up with a lot at gigs – songs that sound microwaved, a view like staring down the wrong end of a telescope, and the slop of warm lager on your back as someone behind you has their first boogie in 20 years.

Punters put up with all this for the thrill of seeing someone perform live – not for a ghoulish sanitised projection, soullessly banging out the hits. It seems farcical to suggest a performer such as Winehouse, steeped in musical heritage, would have appreciated having her image superimposed over a backing tape. Hologram tours sound like the next generation of “jukebox musicals” – those West End shows based on artists’ back catalogues. Jukebox musicals have their cultural place but, especially a mere seven years on, this tour would never have been something Winehouse would have chosen, alive or dead.

• Barbara Ellen is an Observer columnist